Which top-flight team has conceded the most goals without reply?

Ludovic Giuly playing in the Ludovic Giuly; Blackburn Rovers: record breakers?; and has witchcraft ever been used at the Africa Cup of Nations? Send your questions and answers to
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"Until they equalised against Swansea in their last Premier League match, Aston Villa had conceded 17 goals without reply counting back to Liverpool's consolation goal in the 3-1 win at Anfield," wrote Ed Graham last week. "Is this a record for a top-tier team in one of the major leagues?"

In a word, Ed, no. Villa's miserable run of results (8-0 v Chelsea, 4-0 v Tottenham, 3-0 v Wigan plus Liverpool's consolation and Wayne Routledge's opener for Swansea on New Year's Day) equalled Derby County's Premier League record, which was set between September and December 2007 when the Rams were en route to the worst ever Premier League season, but fell well short of a couple of other English efforts.

Back in 1899-1900 Loughborough conceded 23 goals without response in three games – a 7-0 defeat against Barnsley, a 12-0 shellacking against Woolwich Arsenal and a resolute 4-0 reverse against Luton. That, though, came in the old Second Division and can be bettered (or worsened) by top-flight Ipswich Town in 1994-95.

"Between 28 February and 15 April 1995, Town conceded 27 goals without reply," notes Navin Patel. "The opposing teams were Newcastle (2-0), Manchester United (9-0), Spurs (3-0), Norwich (3-0), Aston Villa (1-0), Leeds (4-0), QPR (1-0) and Arsenal (4-1). The run was eventually broken when Ian Marshall scored the final goal in the 4-1 defeat to Arsenal."

Ipswich's mark, though, failed –just – to overcome that of the Bundesliga side Tasmania Berlin in 1965-66. "They were drafted in from the Regionalliga (third level) after Hertha Berlin were booted out for being naughty about illegal payments to players," writes Stephen Glennon. "This being the Cold War, the authorities felt it imperative that Berlin should be represented in the Bundesliga, and up stepped brave Tasmania to fill the gap.

"Obviously they were totally rubbish, and they broke all Bundesliga records for rubbishness. Fewest points (nine) and goals (15) and most goals conceded (108), to name but a few. They also went on a long series of not scoring."

Indeed they did. The run started on 2 October when Borussia Dortmund scored the final goal in a 2-2. There followed defeats against FC Kaiserslautern (0-0), VfB Stuttgart (0-2), Meidericher SV (0-3), FC Koln (0-6), Werder Bremen (0-5), 1860 Munich (0-5), Eintracht Frankfurt (0-4) and Eintracht Braunschweig (0-2). When Neunkirchen went 1-0 up after nine minutes of their meeting on 11 December, Tasmania fans must have feared another fruitless day. Stunningly, 14 minutes later, Lothar Zeh stopped the rot. Opponents had scored 29 goals between Zeh's strike and that of Manfred Pohlschmidt against Dortmund back in October.

For truly magnificent uselessness, though, we turn away from the top flight of one of Europe's biggest leagues to the women's West Midlands Division One North in 2000-01, where Burton Brewers then plied their trade. The Brewers' season began with an 18-0 defeat against Wolverhampton United and deteriorated from there. The worst sequence of their 11-game season (the club, struggling for players, folded before the campaign could be completed) came in October and November when they suffered successively a 21-0 defeat to Darlaston, a 27-0 defeat against North Staffordshire, a 23-0 loss to Willenhall Town and a 22-0 loss against Crewe Vagrants. That four-match run was ended with a 14-1 defeat against City of Stoke, so the century might have been reached, but we can say for sure that their run was at least 93 goals without reply.

Home sweet home

"Ludovic Giuly is moving back to play for his village team after this season, which means he will be playing on Stade Ludovic Giuly," wrote Rasmus Hansen last week. "Has anyone else played in a stadium named after themselves?"

Indeed they have. The Knowledge inbox has been bulging with myriad (well, three) examples from arounf the world:

"The city of Maceió, in the northeast of Brazil, is home to the Estádio Rei Pelé," writes Paulo Padilha. "It was inaugurated on 25 October 1970 with a friendly featuring a team of players from the state of Alagoas versus Santos. Naturally, Pelé himself played in that match."

"Dwight Yorke has played a few times at the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Bacolet, Tobago," writes Duane Pena. "This includes at least two appearances for the national team of Trinidad and Tobago against Northern Ireland and Costa Rica. Unfortunately playing in front of his home crowd in the stadium named in his honour, did not inspire victory in both instances."

Blackburn Rovers: record breakers?

"By my reckoning Blackburn have just appointed their 36th manager in Michael Appleton," writes Jim Brabage. "Has any Football League club had more?"

Appleton is indeed Rovers' 36th manager in their 138-year history, but 36 is pretty much average. Coventry City, Crystal Palace and QPR have all had 44, while Carlisle have racked up 46 but two clubs stand apart as the fastest movers on the managerial merry-go-round.

The current Walsall manager Dean Smith is the 51st man to take charge of the Saddlers, but it is the oldest professional club in the world that have the hottest hotseat in English football. Notts County's Keith Curle is the club's 55th manager. Venky's are trying their best but they've got some catching up to do.

Knowledge archive

"Has witchcraft ever been used at the Africa Cup of Nations?" asked Lloyd Mariner back in the sepia-tinged days of 2008.

Juju has already played a part in this year's tournament, Lloyd: in the opening match between hosts Ghana and Guinea, several Ghana fans carried a "juju pot" containing leaves and liquid in order to "scare away all devils", while churchgoers went to their Sunday service bedecked in the country's red, gold and green for a "cleansing" ceremony designed to inspire "total victory". It seemed to work, if you believe in this sort of thing or are a journalist in need of copy to file, as Ghana's Sulley Muntari scored a last-minute screamer to win the game.

This is nothing on what happened in the 2002 semi-final between Mali and Cameroon, though, when Cameroon coach Winfried Schafer and his goalkeeping coach, Thomas Nkono, were arrested by riot police for placing a magic charm on the pitch before the match. Or two years previously, when a Nigerian FA official skittered on to the pitch mid-game to steal off with a charm which had been placed in the back of the opposition net during his country's quarter-final with Senegal. His intervention came 15 minutes from time with Senegal a goal to the good; by the end of the match, Nigeria had scored twice to turn the game around. Make of that what you will: the options are a lot, or not much.

"We are no more willing to see witch doctors on the pitch than cannibals at the concession stands," said a spokesperson for the CAF, who consider such incidents to propagate the image of Africa as a third-world continent. Though why this should be the case is anyone's guess, given half of England's top stars over the years - John Terry taping his shinpads up three times, Gary Neville wearing the same eau de parfum every day, Gazza making sure all the towels in the dressing room hang off the rail symmetrically - appear to have mild-to-rampaging cases of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but that's the way it seems to be.

Can you help?

"Having scored against West Ham on the 9 December 2012, Joe Cole went on to sign for the Hammers just over three weeks later," muses Mat Owen. "What is the shortest period of time between a player scoring against a team and then signing up with them?"

"Is Michael Appleton trying to set a record for the most clubs managed in a season?" wonders Diggo Blick, via Twitter. "What is the record?"

"Ally McCoist was three months shy of his 48th birthday when he took his first ever manager's post at Rangers," writes Tom Mcgalpine. "Does this make him the oldest managerial 'rookie' in football's top flight?"

"My team Bristol City are yet to claim a clean sheet this season 26 games in (and are unsurprisingly bottom of the league to boot)," grumbles Andrew Paines. "Has a team ever gone a whole season without obtaining a clean sheet? Or if over a season, what's the longest run of games?"